Seasons
by Natsuki
Summary: This is Fin Fish's backstory -- who was she in reality before becoming an angel? Based on the manga, spoilers for the manga series.


Disclaimer: Maron, Chiaki, Fin Fish, Access Time and others belong to Tanemura Arina. I'm just borrowing them for a little while.

Notes: I've always wondered where Fin Fish began, and the brief glimpse we saw of her life before becoming an angel was just enough to prod my curiosity into life. I wrote the first chapter of this some time ago, and it was posted here, but I've just recently tidied it up. The second chapter is on its way, albeit slowly. Thanks are, as always, to Meimi for prodding me into writing this once again.

Seasons: Chapter 1

A Slow Fall into Winter

The rustle of the broom's twigs upon the gray cobblestones, and the accompanying scrape of the leaves beneath them was a comforting constant in the young girl's life: spring brought sakura petals to be swept; summer, dry haze and dust; fall, the leaves; and winter, snow to be cleared from the shrine's grounds. Each season had its own gifts and downfalls, and it simply /was/: neither good nor bad, but evenly balanced.

Or so she was supposed to think. Somehow, Natsuki preferred the changeability of spring, the promise of new growth and the delicacy of the colors to the steady haze of summer or the bleakness of winter in the city. Fall was bold and direct, but it led straight to winter and the chill months.

The courtyard leading to the main shrine was clear of the fallen leaves, and Natsuki surveyed it with satisfaction. Sagami couldn't find fault with her careful work today, and there was a pile of leaves to be burned when he brought home the sweet potatoes he'd promised her when she'd finished the task.

Stowing the broom away in the small shed that stood in the copse of trees responsible for all the leaves that constantly strewed the grounds, she dusted her hands, closed the door, and untied the sleeves of her robe, letting the material fall over her wrists once more. These fall days seemed to be colder every year.

The warmth of the shrine itself was welcome as she stepped into the main room. There were no petitioners today, for it was a work day and thus people had little time for worship. Moving to the pool of ever-cold, ever-clear water that held the place of honour, she studied the reflection contained therein.

It was familiar: the black hair that fell just past her shoulders, the pale skin and the dark eyes. She saw it every morning when she wandered into the bathroom to get ready

for school. Yet, somehow, it always seemed clearer when reflected in the healing water that she herself had prepared and blessed.

The stillness of the water was shattered when a heavy footfall sounded behind her, sending ripples through the surface. "I sometimes think you get visions, as often as I see you staring into that water," a quiet, amused male voice said. She whirled, a smile upon her face in spite of herself.

"Niisan, don't sneak up on me like that! It's not fair, you don't make a sound unless you want to, and you /knew/ that I was thinking..." she protested, though it was a half-hearted one at best.

Sagami shifted a paper bag from one arm to the other, his quiet smile a match for hers though they could not have looked more different. He was day, and she the night, but in that quiet calm they were alike. "I brought the sweet potatoes. I knew you'd finish the leaves today, and the trees are bare, so this will be the last chance we get until next year to have these." He plucked one of the potatoes from the bag and waved it at her, his eyes warm with humour.

Oh, how Natsuki adored him!

"I'll get the fire going, then, if you'll wash them and set the soup and things on the stove. The soup is in the blue container in the fridge, and there's an empty pot for it on the back burner, so even you can't mess it up." If he was going to tease her, she'd tease him, wonderful big brother or no.

"Aa."

Some time later, when they were warming their hands by the fire that swiftly consumed the leaves and twigs so painstakingly swept up by Natsuki and waiting for their sweet potatoes to cook, Sagami looked at his little sister.

She looked so content, out here in the fall evening, with colour brought to her cheeks by the nip in the air and the delight with the flickering and dancing of the flames. It suited her, this season; the stillness between the warmth of summer and the sleep of the winter that would give the world a chance to rest from their yearly toils.

She was sixteen. He knew that there had been boys who were interested in the beautiful shrine maiden who never seemed to develop more than mere friendships at school, no close, tightly bonded comrades but so very many admired her from afar. And that was how he preferred it. She was his little sister, to be adored as a precious object for her purity of heart and soul, but only from afar. He didn't want to share the treasure of his life.

Natsuki seemed to feel his gaze upon her, and looked up at him, her smile widening as she saw his solemn expression. "Niisan, you're thinking serious thoughts again. How can you, when the potatoes are almost done, and the fire's skipping and dancing as though there were a music only it could hear?"

"You mean to say that you don't hear the music it dances to?" He loved to tease her, to see her expression change from happiness to mock-anger in a second. "Oh no, I forgot... you only hear the music of the water you stare into for hours on end."

She didn't look angry now -- she looked thoughtful, and there was a tiny, secretive little smile upon her face that made Sagami feel strangely left out. "It sings such a beautiful song, the water from the ice in the caves. You have to be still to hear it, though... and then things seem so much clearer," she said, then squeaked as a potato rolled out of the coals and near her foot. "I think this one's done, niisama! Do you want it?" She'd always offer him his first.

Natsuki was just too /good/ for this world.

"No, you can have it. I'll take that one. It's bigger." Let her think that he was being greedy. He preferred watching her delight in the simple, sweet taste of the roasted potato over eating his own, and so he merely watched her until she dragged his potato out of the coals, wrapped it in heavy paper, and handed it to him with a bright laugh.

"What /are/ you thinking about? You look so serious again!"

"Just about what a darling, beautiful little sister I have."

"Sagami, don't /tease/ me!!"

"Who said I was?"

"Mou!!" But she smiled, and he pulled out the camera he'd hidden in his pocket to take a picture and preserve the memory of that day forever.

"I'm off!" Natsuki waved her bookbag at him as she skidded out the door, headed to school. She left earlier on the winter days to avoid the rush and slush of the general schoolgoer. "I'll be back after my last class."

"Have a good day!" Sagami called, more than half distracted by the paperwork in front of him. In the small room that served as his study, he pored over the financial records for the shrine -- donations, festival revenues and sales of omamori were all recorded there.

It did not look promising for the new year. Natsuki had to go to school, which meant that she wasn't there to work at the shrine all the time, as their mother had been before she died. The days that Natsuki could work, donations were higher; it seemed that people came just to see her, as though her very presence healed them of their soul sickness, and they donated accordingly.

They provided their holy water for small donations, and more often for nothing at all, though it was well-known to heal minor wounds in moments, and ease the pain of elderly bones. If only there were a way to use that to ensure that the shrine would continue, to link both Natsuki's heartease with the physical healing of the water, and actually take better donations for it.

... even as he thought of it, he knew that Natsuki would never permit anyone who needed the water to go without it, and those who did not deserve it but could pay for it would not come to the shrine while someone with such a pure heart (and a sharp tongue, in some cases) remained.

He stayed there for hours, his attempts at balancing the books broken only by fits of pacing and the occasional visitor or tourist interested in the history of the shrine. One in particular -- a tall, dark haired man with a slight accent that Sagami associated with French -- stayed for a long time, though he seemed uncomfortable with his surroundings, moving restlessly through the grounds, but most often watching the holy water ripple and still. When he had asked if he could help the visitor, the man had merely smiled and shook his head, saying, "I've merely come as my feet brought me, so to speak."

"Oh?"

"There's a great deal of good in this shrine. A lot of power, if you get my meaning."

He'd been surprised then that someone who was apparently unassociated with religion -- for the man's suit was tailored to perfection, his dark hair tied back at the nape of his neck, and he looked more like someone who had spent years polishing his image to perfection -- had been able to sense Natsuki's influence over the shrine. Sagami himself knew that he did little to preserve the power stored here; it was another reason he guarded his sister so jealously. And so he'd smiled and nodded, not trusting himself to say anything more to this stranger, and he'd felt more than relieved when the man had left soon after their discussion. No matter how good that man's Japanese had been, Sagami had been uncomfortable in his presence, and he attributed it to the foreign accent.

It was long past the time when Natsuki usually came home. As the sky darkened, Sagami's nervousness increased, his worry exceeding the his usual ability to calm himself. He didn't notice the dark shadow that began to flit through the carved basin that held the water. All he knew was that-

The phone rang.

"Kukehara-san? This is Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital. Your sister was in an accident. She's in the ER now."

He left the phone dangling from its cord as he raced to find a taxi to carry him to the hospital.

She was weak, they had told him, and she had been dangerously exposed to the winter's chill before they had managed to free her from the wreck. It didn't prepare him for the sight of Natsuki, paler than ever before, lying still in a narrow hospital bed without the sense of life that she carried with her. The IV in her wrist seemed almost a violation of her stillness and purity.

Sagami stayed in a chair beside her bed, not daring to touch her for fear that he would disturb her, and glaring at the nurses when they came to check on her. The picture he'd taken in the fall -- one he carried everywhere -- seemed to mock him with the captured moment in which Natsuki had been full of life and light.... versus now, when she lay so very silently.

"...nii... san?" The breathy whisper from the bed drew him from his reverie, and he almost reached for her hand, stopping himself at the last moment. "I hurt." The pain in her voice nearly undid him; he felt tears burning in his eyes, but could not shed them.

"You were hit by a car on the way home... they couldn't get you out until they'd cleared the glass, or you would have been more hurt," he explained quickly, then rang for a nurse.

A week later, Natsuki was home, though she was still weak. The doctors didn't approve of her being out of the hospital so soon, but both her pleas to go home and Sagami's insistence had eventually gotten her release forms signed.

They had warned him, though. Due to her long exposure before treatment and the damage to her lungs when a shard of glass had pierced one, she would always be susceptible to illness and shortness of breath. He had told them in no uncertain terms (and with a small, secretive amount of vindictive pleasure) that they could do no more for her, but /he/ might be able to do something that they, incompetent as they were, could not.

He hadn't noticed, again, that he was no longer truly considering his sister's health... he was merely taking pleasure in angering the doctors.

But now that Natsuki was home, he could care for her, and pray for her safe recovery. She insisted on doing too much, though, waking up before he could to cook breakfast, and sometimes she even managed to sneak out and clear the walkways before he could do so, and no amount of persuasion could make her stop listening to the troubles of those who came to the shrine to seek spiritual help.

"How can you be so patient?" He'd asked after listening to an old man pour out his grief for his dead wife in the most inane of ways, rambling for a long time and then stopping.

"I can't not be. He was hurting, and he'd lived with his wife and loved her so for sixty years, through wars and everything else. Mother would have listened, just as I did."

"But you're still recovering..."

"I still have to help."

He'd dropped the subject then, frustrated that she would not listen to him, wouldn't stop giving of herself to people who didn't deserve to have even a moment of her time or the tiniest smile from her. It was simply her way.

Now it was February, and she had been recovering far more slowly than the doctors had hoped -- it had been two months since the accident, and she was still pale and short of breath. Yet he could not bring himself to send her back to the hospital, nor could the shrine afford the bills.

"Natsuki," he said to her over dinner, where she toyed with her food but did not eat. "You'd tell me if you were feeling ill again, wouldn't you?"

"Why, niisama?"

He sighed. "Because you're my little sister. You're the most important thing in my life." A small laugh escaped her, followed by a whispery cough. Sagami felt his heart drop. "You're sick again." It wasn't a question. "Why didn't you tell me, Natsuki?"

"Because you would worry, niisama. It's okay, I'll be all right."

Natsuki never lied, and so he believed her.

A month later, she was worse, not better.

He couldn't tell her that he was angry she'd lied to him, because he still knew that it wasn't true. She'd thought she would be all right, and he'd believed her because she'd believed herself. But seeing her fight for breath hurt him.

"I just want to see the spring once more, niisama," she'd confided in him late one night, when she'd been unable to sleep and he'd stayed up with her. She'd been so pale then, but so accepting, her eyes shining with the slight fever as well as her beautiful calm. "Just one more, and that's as long as I will last. Niisama..."

She'd trailed off and looked away then, and he hadn't understood her actions then.

"... when I have almost died, I want you to..."

She'd known that the shrine was dying, the ice that provided their holy water that helped so many people slowly losing its potency. And... she was willing to sacrifice her last moments of life, and perhaps her soul -- for who knew what it was, save sacrifice and purity, that created the holy water's abilities? -- for the shrine's sake. He'd agreed to it only when she'd pleaded with him.

... but, as he studied the photo he'd taken in the fall, he wondered if he really wanted to share her with those who would come seeking the blessing she would provide.

And he decided that only those who would pay would be allowed to receive it. Because maybe, if they'd had enough money, the doctors would've been able to avert this.

Kukehara Natsuki died on the first day of spring... a private ceremony was held by her grieving brother, and those who had admired her and loved her for her ability to ease the pain of wounded hearts attended. They didn't know that her soul had gone, but her body remained, trapped within the ice and purifying it...

... while her brother sold the blessing to those who had enough money to pay for it.


End file.
